A child goes missing every five hours
There is NO WAITING PERIOD for reporting a person missing to the nearest police station
According to the Missing Persons Bureau, a child goes missing every five hours in our country.
And while Missing Children SA’s case load increases every year, they see a decrease in their success rate very year.
This is according to Bianca van Aswegen, a senior case officer at Missing Children SA.
“Our case load increases every year – not necessarily only because more individuals go missing but also because more people become aware of Missing Children SA and the service we render,” she said.
From May 1, 2016 to April 30, 2017, 485 people were reported missing to Missing Children SA (304 adults and 181 children). Of these 312 were found (167 adults and 145 children).
These figures are only based on cases reported to Missing Children SA and do not reflect all the cases reported to the police.
“We have an overall success rate of 64 per cent. For the children’s cases alone our success rate is 80 per cent. It is an unfortunate reality that nine per cent of the children found again, were found deceased,” Van Aswegen said.
“Every year we see the success rate decrease. We cannot say for a fact that it is because fewer people are found again, or perhaps because more cases are reported to our organisation.”
Gauteng’s missing persons figures were top of the list with 201 cases reported and 144 being solved. This includes 125 adults (75 found) and 76 children (69 found).
Countrywide, 43 of the children found were found deceased, while 30 adults were found dead.
Van Aswegen said the main reason for children going missing was run-aways (43%), followed by reasons unknown (35%), deceased (7%), kidnappings (6%), parental/family abduction (6%) and lost (3%).
Most of the children who went missing was aged between 13 and 17 years (72%), followed by 0-6 years (15%) and 7-12 years (13%).
Van Aswegen said: “On a daily basis we are striving to make more and more people aware of the reality of human trafficking. We are sure more cases reported to SAPS as well as to our organisation are because of human trafficking, but at this stage it cannot be proven.
“According to the International Labour Organisation, it is estimated that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Furthermore, 32 billion dollars profit is generated annually from human trafficking,” she said.
To report a missing person
Go to www.missingchildren.org.za/page/report.
Contact Details for Missing Children SA:
Emergency Number: 072MISSING / 072 647 7464
General Enquiries/Office: 021 950 1546
Media Enquiries: media@missingchildren.org.za
E-mail Address: info@missingchildren.org.za
Website: www.missingchildren.org.za
Facebook Group: Missing Children SA Page
Twitter: @072missing
